


Sunrise

by noifsandsorbees



Series: Stars and Sunrises [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Series, Pre-IWTB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5098754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noifsandsorbees/pseuds/noifsandsorbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the prompt "Mulder and Scully try to arrange their furniture." Loose follow-up to Stars, but can be read alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise

Mulder wakes in a pitch-black room to the scraping of furniture on rough wood floors. The bed is empty and numbingly cold and he immediately grabs Scully’s pillow to him and tries to fall back asleep. But only seconds later there’s another loud screech of wood and a muttered “shit!”

He still doesn’t understand her energy so early in the morning, somehow always fully awake and ready to take on the day, with an optimism and flirtiness that often mellows as the day goes on. He stands up and throws their comforter tight around him as he walks off to the living room.

The walls are bare and the floor is dotted with thrift store furniture they’ve found in the last week and what few possessions they have left. Scully is hunched over the unnaturally heavy couch, pushing it a few inches at a time as it catches on the uneven planks of their new home.

Mulder pads over to her and wraps the blanket around her from behind, folding her into his arms.

“Morning,” he sighs, pressing a kiss to her cheek. He looks through the curtain-less window to the moon still peering over the trees. “Or at least, something like it,” he amends.

Mulder had thought building a home with Scully would mean sleeping in until noon and spending full days curled up in bed together. Two years on the run together and one alone beforehand had left him exhausted, craving the simple pleasures of a lazy Saturday morning. But he was learning quickly that Scully may have had other plans.

She always woke up early in their motel rooms, to go on a run, grab coffee and shower, but he had assumed it was a survival method, not a choice. He usually followed along, able to snap awake when work or survival called for it, but he never understood the appeal on mornings like these.

“Morning,” she smiles back at him. “Help me move the couch, facing those windows over there,” she says, pointing toward the front of the house.

He pulls away from her and tightens the blanket around his shoulders before helping her push the couch until it fits exactly the way she wants.

“What’s next?” He asks, prepared for a full day of housework.

She lays down and holds out a hand for him. “C'mere.”

Scully presses herself against the back, leaving room for Mulder to lie down next to her. He follows, and she immediately twines their legs together, resting her head on his chest while he drapes the comforter back over them.

“I don’t like the view from the bedroom,” she mumbles against him.

“No?”

“It’s facing West. I like watching the sun rise.”

His mind suddenly jumps to a night so many years ago, when they were somehow infinitely more innocent than they are now, where she dragged him across Virginia just to watch the stars shine. He almost kissed her for the first time, but instead they laid like this, with him savoring every moment of having her in his arms.

He’s kissed her countless time since, but each one still amazes him, leaves him jelly-limbed and lightheaded, as if it were the first. 

“Want to see if we can switch up the rooms?” He asks.

“No,” she sighs. “But some mornings you’ll probably just find me down here like this.”

He loves when Scully says little things like that, reassuring him that when she’s gone in the morning she’ll still be here with him, settling his fears without needing to call him out on them. It’s a gentleness and care that no one has ever taken with him before, but she seemed to grasp onto naturally.

“Just wake me up if you want me to join you,” he says before cupping her jaw and bringing her into a lazy kiss.

“We should get a coffee table for over here,” she says a few moments later, pointing in front of the couch. “An armchair or something over there, maybe get few lamps around the room, and we can put a TV in that corner.”

“It’s starting to sound like home,” he sighs, some part of him realizing he never thought he’d have that feeling again. He knew he’d have her, and that was more important than any house he could imagine, but having four walls and a roof, a closet with her suits and a shower with her shampoo sitting alongside his, made him feel complete for the first time in almost 35 years.


End file.
